US President Donald Trump visits India: Signs Defence Deals:
The US President Donald Trump visited India. He was accompanied by his wife, the first lady, Melania Trump, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Along side his visit, India and US signed defence deals worth 3 billion USD.
The President was welcomed by PM Modi in a traditional way at Ahmedabad airport. Mr Trump later visited Sabarmati Ashram and Taj Mahal. The leaders then addressed a large gathering at Motera stadium. India celebrated the visit of the US President by naming the event as “Namaste Trump”.
NITI Aayog Report: 28% of Aadhaar based payment are going to wrong accounts:
The NITI Aayog has released a progress report on National Nutrition Mission (Poshan Abhiyaan). According to the report, one in three Aadhaar based payments was credited to a wrong bank account, especially in Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana.
This is the second report prepared by the think tank. The report was prepared and released by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. According to the report, 28% of Aadhaar based payments were going to wrong bank accounts. The report also says that 66% of direct benefit transfers were based on Aadhaar. Only 60% of the beneficiaries were aware of the receipt of benefits.
Out of the 19 large states, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh scored the top three ranks. They had implementation scores of 70% and above.
The least performing larges states were Karnataka, Assam and Kerala. Among the small states Mizoram and Sikkim scored above 75%.
Among Union Territories Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh and Daman and Diu were the best performers scoring above 75%.
Pakistan continues at grey list of FATF for another 4 months:
•The Paris based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an organization that monitors the financing of international terrorism, gave a 4-month extension to Pakistan & warned of action for its failure to combat money laundering and terror financing.
•Islamabad (Pakistan) continues to remain on grey list & If it does not curb the financing of terrorism by June 2020, it will be put on the blacklist.
•The decision has been taken by FATF after the completion of its 6-day plenary session in Paris, France.
Bangladesh records sharp decline in Child malnutrition: UNICEF Survey:
•The child malnutrition rate in Bangladesh has declined sharply over the last six years. The finding was reported in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019, jointly conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and UNICEF. The survey has also recorded an improvement in many other areas related to health and nutrition, Child protection, hygiene and sanitation.
•The rate of chronic malnutrition among children measured by the stunting level among them has come down from 42 percent in 2013 to 28 percent in 2019. The percentage of underweight children below 5 also declined from about 32 percent to 22.6 percent over the same period. The infant mortality rate has also declined from 46 to 34 per thousand live births between 2012-13 and 2019.
•The survey reports that the percentage of children of school entry age who enter the first grade of primary school marked a sharp upward trend from 33 percent in 2012-13 to 61.4 in 2019.
•The survey also records improvement in access to and use of toilets, birth registration, ante-natal care coverage, institutional deliveries and similar other parameters indicating an overall improvement in child and mother health in the country.
•However, the availability of Children’s books declined from 8.8 percent to 6.1 percent during this period. The incidence of violent disciplining of children has shown an upward trend during this period.
•The data for the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019 was collected between January and June of 2019.
•The Global MICS Programme was developed by UNICEF in the 1990s. It collects internationally comparable data on a wide range of indicators on the situation of children and women for use in policies, programmes, and national development plans.
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